Karen Matthews, pictured in 2008 during the hunt for her 'missing' daughter

Trailer for Channel 5 documentary Shannon Matthews: What Happened Next

The show, set to air on Channel 5 at 10pm on Tuesday, will again examine the now infamous case which saw Shannon 'kidnapped' by her own mum and then reported missing.

The programme will claim that Karen Matthews – who appealed to the public for help finding her “missing” daughter – did not act alone.

According to the documentary, people who knew the disgraced mum will claim she was acting under instruction from somebody else.

Neighbours insist Karen and her accomplice Michael Donovan were not savvy enough to have hatched the scheme on their own.

Pal Julie Bushby, who mounted searches for nine-year-old Shannon in 2008 when she vanished, said: "I think others were involved.

"Others have got to be involved, because like I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, Karen didn’t have the intelligence, and Donovan, from what the cops have said, he didn’t have the intelligence."

Julie thinks people must be keeping secrets to 'protect themselves'.

She explained: "I think there are at least three other people who know far more than they let on. This is a horrible conspiracy of silence and it’s time for those people to speak out and tell the truth.

"Karen was not intelligent enough to think it up on her own. I’m not saying at all what she did was right, or that she was totally innocent, but she’s not evil.

"This was never about the reward money, something else was going on. We need the truth now.”